Syngene, a world-leading manufacturer of image analysis solutions, is pleased to announce its G:BOX Chemi HR16 automated image analyser has been tested at the University of Cambridge, to help save time when studying the oligosaccharide profile of genetically modified plants.

Researchers in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Cambridge use the G:BOX Chemi HR16 to perform automatic quantification of fluorescently labelled oligosaccharides on PACE (polysaccharide analysis using carbohydrate gel electrophoresis) gels to produce a unique profile of the plant’s cell wall composition.

Dr Florence Goubet, a post-doctoral scientist from Dr Paul Dupree’s team in the Department of Biochemistry explained: “PACE and automated quantification can be substituted for chromatography and mass spectrometry techniques, both of which require pure or large amounts of compounds to generate results from just a few plant samples. Using our method we can process up to 100 samples a day and can detect oligosaccharides in the picomole range, which means we can rapidly identify whether we have successfully genetically engineered the plants we are modifying.”

Dr Goubet continued: “We chose the G:BOX Chemi HR16 for this project because it is an inexpensive, yet accurate way of scanning fluorescently labelled gels. Additionally, because the system is integrated to GeneTools software, we have the added benefit of automatically analysing an image to generate results from a gel in less than 10 seconds.”

Laura Sullivan, Syngene’s Divisional Manager commented: “We are delighted that such a well-respected University is seeing the G:BOX Chemi HR16 make an invaluable contribution to this important research. The sensitivity and speed these scientists are achieving, shows PACE combined with a G:BOX Chemi HR16 offers an excellent alternative to traditional carbohydrate analysis which could, if widely adopted, save plant biochemists hours of valuable research time.”